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August 25, 2005

Apropos of nothing...

...while doing something else entirely I came across Marlowe's The Tragedie of Doctor Faustus. I remember taking a class in college where the teacher - who was also a theater director* of no little skill - gave us a fairly graphic demonstration of why this play kicks serious ass.

I can still hear the quiet, desperate whispering of the end...

Moe

*The kind of guy who belonged to the Richard III Society, which should give some of you an idea (for the record, I flirted with the idea of joining, but never committed to it).

PS: Text below the fold.

O, Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damned perpetually.
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come.
Fair nature's eye, rise, rise again and make
Perpetual day. Or let this hour be but a year,
A month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent, and save his soul.
O lente lente currite noctis equi.
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike.
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
O, I'll leap up to heaven; who pulls me down?
One drop of blood will save me.
Rend not my heart, for naming of my Christ.
Yet will I call on him. O spare me, Lucifer.
Where is it now? 'Tis gone.
And see a threatening arm, an angry brow.
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven.
No? Then will I headlong run into the earth.
Gape, earth! O no, it will not harbour me.
You stars that reigned at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist,
Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,
That when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smokey mouths,
But let my soul mount, and ascend to heaven.

The watch strikes.
O, half the hour is past! 'Twill all be past anon.
O, if my soul must suffer for my sin,
Impose some end to my incessant pain.
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be saved.
No end is limited to damned souls.
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
Oh ppstêagoras' metempsychosis' were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be changed
Into some brutish beast.
All beasts are happy, for when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolved in elements,
But mine must live still to be plagued in hell.
Cursed be the parents that engendered me;
No, Faustus, curse thyself. Curse Lucifer
That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.

The clock strikes twelve
It strikes, it strikes! Now body turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell.
O soul be changed into small water drops,
And fall into the ocean ne'er be found.